Collected Stories of Carson McCullers by Carson Mccullers Page A

Again she saw her hands—the quivering tendons that stretched down from her knuckles, the sore finger tip cupped with curled, dingy tape. The sight sharpened the fear that had begun to torment her for the past few months.
    Noiselessly she mumbled a few phrases of encouragement to herself. A good lesson—a good lesson—like it used to be—Her lips closed as she heard the stolid sound of Mister Bilderbach's footsteps across the floor of the studio and the creaking of the door as it slid open.
    For a moment she had the peculiar feeling that during most of the fifteen years of her life she had been looking at the face and shoulders that jutted from behind the door, in a silence disturbed only by the muted, blank plucking of a violin string. Mister Bilderbach. Her teacher, Mister Bilderbach. The quick eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses; the light, thin hair and the narrow face beneath; the lips full and loose shut and the lower one pink and shining from the bites of his teeth; the forked veins in his temples throbbing plainly enough to be observed across the room.
    "Aren't you a little early?" he asked, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece that had pointed to five minutes of twelve for a month. "Josef's in here. We're running over a little sonatina by someone he knows."
    "Good," she said, trying to smile. "I'll listen." She could see her fingers sinking powerless into a blur of piano keys. She felt tired—felt that if he looked at her much longer her hands might tremble.
    He stood uncertain, halfway in the room. Sharply his teeth pushed down on his bright, swollen lip. "Hungry, Bienchen?" he asked. "There's some apple cake Anna made, and milk."
    "I'll wait till afterward," she said. "Thanks."
    "After you finish with a very fine lesson—eh?" His smile seemed to crumble at the corners.
    There was a sound from behind him in the studio and Mister Lafkowitz pushed at the other panel of the door and stood beside him.
    "Frances?" he said, smiling. "And how is the work coming now?"
    Without meaning to, Mister Lafkowitz always made her feel clumsy and overgrown. He was such a small man himself, with a weary look when he was not holding his violin. His eyebrows curved high above his sallow, Jewish face as though asking a question, but the lids of his eyes drowsed languorous and indifferent. Today he seemed distracted. She watched him come into the room for no apparent purpose, holding his pearl-tipped bow in his still fingers, slowly gliding the white horsehair through a chalky piece of rosin. His eyes were sharp bright slits today and the linen handkerchief that flowed down from his collar darkened the shadows beneath them.
    "I gather you're doing a lot now," smiled Mister Lafkowitz, although she had not yet answered the question.
    She looked at Mister Bilderbach. He turned away. His heavy shoulders pushed the door open wide so that the late afternoon sun came through the window of the studio and shafted yellow over the dusty living room. Behind her teacher she could see the squat long piano, the window, and the bust of Brahms.
    "No," she said to Mister Lafkowitz, "I'm doing terribly." Her thin fingers flipped at the pages of her music. "I don't know what's the matter," she said, looking at Mister Bilderbach's stooped muscular back that stood tense and listening.
    Mister Lafkowitz smiled. "There are times, I suppose, when one—"
    A harsh chord sounded from the piano. "Don't you think we'd better get on with this?" asked Mister Bilderbach.
    "Immediately," said Mister Lafkowitz, giving the bow one more scrape before starting toward the door. She could see him pick up his violin from the top of the piano. He caught her eye and lowered the instrument. "You've seen the picture of Heime?"
    Her fingers curled tight over the sharp corner of the satchel. "What picture?"
    "One of Heime in the
Musical Courier
there on the table. Inside the top cover."
    The sonatina began. Discordant yet somehow simple. Empty but with a